A lot has changed over the last few years in India's TV broadcasting arena. As revenues from advertising and TV subscriptions grew 17% to touch $4.2 billion in 2006, so the quality and variety of content across a gamut of mass and niche channels has also evolved.

Whether an adaptation of international formats or original concepts produced in India, there has been no shortage of experimentation. Audiences were spoilt for choice with the extension of evening primetime, the introduction of original programming during the daytime and above all these slots witnessing new launches every few months.

Production houses in India not only developed the expertise to localize successful international formats but also actively engaged themselves in creating novel concepts for broadcasters.

And after fifteen years in the cable and satellite industry, the likes of Star India, Sony Entertainment Television and Zee Telefilms are reaping the rewards via their respective content syndication divisions.

The demand for TV software from India, highlighting local culture and traditions, can be understood in the context of overall demand for varied content. Already, the global entertainment majors and studios are eyeing movies with partners in India - plus business related to the international distribution of such movies is scaling up as well. And in a relatively new trend, the signing of co-production deals exemplifies the fact that India is proving to be hot for various forms of content including movies and animation.

For example, in August this year, Warner Bros. Pictures announced its first Hindi production 'Made In China'. Partners in India include Ramesh Sippy Productions. The movie will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The likes of Fox Searchlight, Overbrook Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Hyde Park Entertainment, too, also signed deals in India in the last year.

Ronnie Screwvala, Founder and Chairman of UTV Group, who is scheduled to present a speech, entitled Indian Media - A global destination, during MIPCOM 2007, told Television Asia: "While these are early days for Indian media on the global map, I believe India itself is hot. India's 9% growth rate coupled with its vast youthful population (72% of India's population is below the age of 35) make India irresistible to global companies. This is the time to be young in India. Having said that, today 40% of our revenues for feature films come from the global market and the figures are growing."

"Every western media major wants a piece of the domestic action in India. And similarly most media houses in India want the reverse. In either cases there would mostly be 'local' partners or local acquisitions involved. Therefore the need to suddenly gain production and broadcasting competency will be always superceded by the need to find the right partners or investment avenues," said Screwvala, who was instrumental in launching Hungama TV, India's first made in India 24- hour entertainment channel for kids, before it was acquired by Walt Disney last year.

Referring to popularity of the Indian cinema, Mumbaibased Kaushal Modi, Head - Licensing and Telephony, Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India Pvt Ltd says the current trend in releases and business reflects the exuberance towards Indian story telling and content.

"Indian programming concepts and formats are being exposed to the US and Europe and we should soon see proliferation of the same. While we have already demonstrated our expertise in storytelling and animation, we need to tailor our offering to the international taste, especially considering the scheduling

and seasons that are followed in US / Europe compared to the flow in India. While the programming has been made for India, we have started adapting /re-purposing the same for the International audience too," said Modi. SET has been actively in the business of syndication since 2005 and banks upon a variety of genres and also hits of Hindi cinema.

Talking about markets like Europe and US, Sameer Rao, Senior Vice President - Strategic Planning and Commercial, Star India Pvt Ltd, said Indian programming is extremely popular among audiences in these territories and that's the reason all the top Indian channels are available in these markets.

"Since complete channels are already available, content licensing is very limited as far as TV is concerned. However, newer platforms of distribution are emerging and there is a huge opportunity in that area," said Rao.

However, Mukund Cairae, Head – Content Sales, Zee International feels programming concepts in the US and Europe are still driven by local ideas and a very strong influence from Latin America.

"There are marginal players who opt for Indian content to add value to their current offering but as yet there are not noticeable formats being exported from India," said Cairae.

Cairae said that Zee Network has been a pioneer in selling Indian content worldwide. "In regions where (Zee's) full operations were not present, we opened the door to Indian entertainment by doing content sale deals. When the market reciprocated, we opened up full channel operations, for example as in Malaysia. We used to do content sales deals with Astro in Malaysia. Eventually now we have started a separate channel with Hindi and Bahasa dubbing and Bahasa subtitles for them," he said.

In terms of performance, Star is leveraging its number one position in the Hindi general entertainment genre.

Rao said, "Star's content has done extremely well for channels across the world. Our shows are the number one shows in many countries such as Sri Lanka (Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (KSBKBT) and Kasautii Zindagi Kay, which are dubbed in Sinhala), Afghanistan,(KSBKBT which is dubbed in Dari and Pashto), Mauritius (KSBKBT for the last five years). Owing to the success of these programs, we have had a number of new deals in these territories and have created in roads to newer territories."

On how deals are structured, SET's Modi shared that deals vary across buyers, from a simple licensing to the dubbing or re-creation of programs. Cairae said Zee signs limited period, platform-based content sale deals with buyers.

"The advantage of being a seller with a library of over 90,000 hours is the sheer range of genres and related offerings that we can offer. Be it documentary, lifestyle, drama, epics, movies, sitcoms – we have it all," he said. "We are dealing with two distinct types of buyers. One, those that have bought Indian content in the past and are well defined in their needs. They only look for specific genres with specific volumes for their platforms. Second, those who have heard of the rich Indian content and are curious to experiment. We sit with them and understand their audience reach, profiles and then suggest related content for them to buy. I find this breed of programming people more interesting to learn from."

Star India signs content licensing deals for telecast of its shows and formats to be produced locally, or released on home video etc, for a limitedterm or number of telecasts.

Rao said, "The content licensing business is changing with the emergence of newer mediums such as mobile, broadband, Internet, IPTV etc. While the genres and content remains the same, the way they are distributed is changing. Also, newer markets are opening up and willing to experiment with Indian content on new platforms."

Agreeing with Rao on opportunities provided by new mediums, SET's Modi said that the content needs vary depending upon the platform. "Digital distribution is changing the landscape," he said. When it comes to popularity, which are the top markets seeking Indian content?

According to Modi, markets can be classified in terms of traditional Indian markets (where there is a significant Indian or South Asian population) like Malaysia, UK, Pakistan etc and then there are emerging markets which are looking at localizing Indian programming concepts like the Far East and Europe. He feels serials, animation, documentaries and cinema are the popular formats and concepts with buyers.

Star's Rao said, "The top markets are countries in the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and North America. As far as the preference is concerned, we have seen that they all prefer the top-rated drama series and Bollywood- based programs. The most popular concepts are the Indian drama series and Bollywood- based content."

Providing a break-up in terms of tastes of each specific market, Zee's Cairae shared that in the Asia Pacific region, buyers from China prefer dramas, Indonesian clients opts for costume dramas and ones from Japan find general entertainment attractive. Among others New Zealand has shown penchant for lifestyle and short story dramas, Malaysia – dramas, movies and events; Sri Lanka– dramas, predominantly in English, and fashion; Pakistan - events and movies; UAE – movies and lifestyle. In other continents, Mauritius – dramas, musical (Hindi, Marathi and Telugu languages) and Europeans opts for movies and Hindi moviesrelated content.

Talking of competition, how is India placed vis-à-vis Korea, Japan and Singapore when it comes to preference and demand for concepts/ formats conceived in India?

Star's Rao said, "In India content producers have still not opted for formatting their shows and licensing them in a big way like these countries. The focus till now was on licensing the produced content, as is."

On the same, SET's Modi said Korea has been focusing on their programming over the last couple of years and are seeing the fruits of that. "We need to invest in exposing our programming, culture and ethos to the international community, to interest them. We also need to adapt our programming concepts to the respective markets and the local dynamics."

According to Zee's Cairae the governments of all these countries have been extremely years in working hand in hand with content creators to popularize the content worldwide.

"India has a long way to go before we reach the levels of any of these countries – sales wise. However, I would say that the popularity of all these countries' content is limited when compared to south American content/format producers. Indian content has to look to combat the challenge posed by the Latin companies," he said.

But UTV's Screwvala is quite bullish. "On the broadcast front UTV is one of the few broadcasters to have created a local success in a foreign country as we did with Astro Ceria which now is the number one kids channel in Malaysia. In fact it was UTV's original game show Gol Gol Gullam that did the trick along with some unique proprietary marketing techniques. So I think we have the expertise, we just need to seize the opportunity in global markets," he said.

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